Trading Yesterday
by Namiooo
Summary: After coming back, Seth has to deal with the sins of his past. Seth/Oz. Part one of three. Rated T for implied sex.


AR∀GO belongs to Arai Takahiro. I only drown in ships.

* * *

The heavy London rain pounded on the windows of the darkened room, but neither made a move. The sharp pit pats, the musty smell of books, the scent that hung and weighed down—Seth found it hard to care for them when his bones were dust, his muscles tired, and his company warm.

Oz's eyelids fluttered open. "Oh, you're still here."

His words were coated thick with sleep, but Seth snorted nonetheless, shifting until his back rested against the headboard, gazing out to the world. Oz cushioned his head with an arm.

"This is my apartment, I'm not leaving just because you distrust your one night stands," Seth said.

"Well, you're always very elusive." Oz shrugged, and the act drew Seth's attention to his muscles, shifting like a beautifully crafted automaton. "Can't blame me for being surprised."

Seth tore his eyes away from the scar-marred skin and tried to look at the rain instead. His fingers twitched, itching for the comfort of a book, but he was on the side far from the lamp and he didn't feel like reaching over Oz to get to it. Thunder rumbled in the distance. The construction equipments were dark silhouettes, melding with the shadows of the newly built apartments and houses. London slowly stood on her feet.

"You seem to be content sleeping on my bed," Seth finally said. "Do you always sleep with and on people you threatened to kill?"

"Do you always shag people who threatened to kill you?" Oz replied, voice still lazy with sleep. His half lidded eyes held no trace of animosity— a rare sight from the last sword of the Queen. "And it's not good to drive when you're sleepy. I like to sleep whenever I can."

It had been months since his breaking out of Lia Fail, since Oz offered the proverbial olive branch. Seth didn't know what to do with it, to be frank. He didn't know what to do with his life.

Life wasn't as easy as Arago thought it was.

"You should get some curtains, if the storm bothers you so much."

Seth closed his eyes. "Just go back to sleep, Oz."

Oz, like the infuriating being he was, didn't. There was expectation in the silence—an invitation, and he knew that Oz was waiting for his admission. He wouldn't say it. But it was there, hanging like the questions Seth had about this whole scenario. Like the intentions lurking behind this casual benefit.

But at the same time, Seth wanted to talk. He wanted to let it out, let it hang—let it be known, because despite everything, his conscience was starting to return. He was starting to have a heart, as funny as it sounded. It had been so long. It had been too long.

The idealistic optimism he had years ago seemed so far away, and he was barely nineteen. His mum died not even five years ago, not even four—and in those one thousand four hundred days, he managed to lose all morals and conscience, turned into something only Biblical demons could match. The hands that used to hold his mother's were, now, more used to direct deaths.

He killed many. He killed people.

Seth hid his face behind an arm, sucking in a deep breath. Oz knew what he was doing, it seemed.

"I killed people." Seth paused. "I killed people out of petty selfishness."

The one reason why he would sleep with Oz was this: Oz knew the grittiness of reality and didn't even bother to hide it. He might play up his idiot act, his clown card, but his eyes calculated, his brain came to the worst case scenarios. It was simply his training. He had little good expectations from others—correct guesses were more important than frail optimism. Seth didn't have to hide much. He was horrible and he knew it. Oz knew it. Even if he wouldn't do so, getting close to Arago meant attempts to fix him, and he wanted to set his own pace.

Oz was the kind to obliterate the problem.

"I truly lost my conscience somewhere along Eames," he continued. That year was the one that made his mouth bitter beyond senses—on his tongue, disgust, disbelief, and twisted satisfaction mixed into one. "I suppose if I'm honest he influenced me a bit. I contracted the Orc sometime before that, but if I hadn't met him, I wouldn't have pulled off such intricate plots. He started it, but I made it a forest fire."

Harassment was always a part of his life. It was easy to find 'wrongs' in a kid who liked books, who liked Blake, but he never let it get to him. His mum was always there to make the poems so much more than the petty insults, so much beyond the bullying. He knew who he was and that knowledge kept him steady, but the burn in his heart from the injustice, too, was the result of his conviction.

But killing them was out of line.

"Do you regret it?" Oz's voice was even.

"I don't think you understand the depth of my regret." There really wasn't a way to express it concisely—the knowledge that he was doing a heinous crime, the fact that he did it without much thought, the reality that his beating heart was rotten, the blood of people whose lives were cut short. The acceptance that he was beyond salvation. The understanding that he would never see his mother, who must be in Heaven.

The weight in his stomach when he realised he disappointed his mum, the guilt that settled in his mind at the realisation that he cared less about the lives he took than he was about his mum's opinion.

Seth didn't even know where to begin fixing himself.

"I've had to kill, too, before," Oz said. The lazy tone hid none of the indescribable nausea in his voice. "For England, I thought."

"For the cause," Seth murmured back.

"Myeah." Oz turned to his back, huddling under the blanket. His dog tag glinted in the dark. "I'm not saying that I would equate those two, but it does feel like it's right."

Seth glanced at him. "How did you deal with it?"

"The busy bee has no time for sorrow," he simply quoted. Seth's fingers twitched again, longing for a book. "Lots of psychiatrist help."

"I don't know how to atone." There—the admission. The truth he wanted to say.  
The brief months in Lia Fail showed things that would leave him in tears at nights: a him that wasn't twisted, a mother who was alive and laughing and kind, a world that was just. The day-to-day details that wasn't extraordinary, wasn't supernatural. A ruffle when he came back with good grades, a tight hug when he managed to enter the best university in London. No wonder Arago didn't want to be in that dream—waking up felt like the world crashed against his back.  
He didn't want to wake up.

"Well, to me, I see it like this, little devil: you can either follow the law and let yourself be imprisoned for life, or you can atone by doing this world some good. The first is probably way too easy, if you ask my opinion. Well, if you discount the sexual harassment in prisons; you're definitely too pretty. The second is harder. A lot harder."

But it's the more correct one, he knew. "What do you think?"

Oz shrugged. "To me, you're frankly more useful alive than dead. You've got the brains, you've got the ambitions, you know how to make connections. You can probably make some noticeable changes. It's never going to really disappear, you know? And letting yourself rot away in some prison is both going to fill you with more guilt for inactivity and because your mind is going to be preoccupied with your memories. I know that a better world was your first goal. You can't revive the dead, you just have to deal with it, some way or another."

"These people have families," Seth murmured, but it wasn't aimed at anything. The words just hung in the air like banners, like things he'd never forget. "How do I explain it to them?"

"You probably cannot," Oz answered. "And you probably will never be able to. And then you probably can't walk up to a psychologist and admit that you murdered some kids in cold blood. You can't do anything about those years in your life. But it's the consequences of your action. Are you going to back out?"  
Seth answered as honestly as he could. "I will try not to."

Though he wished he could undo time, all he could do now was bear the knowledge that he deprived some teens from their futures. That he killed them. The words were starting to regain its appalling meaning, it seemed, and they settled heavy on his tongue. It would not be easy, as Oz said. He knew it wouldn't be without his affirmation. But taking the easy way out was an even bigger disservice. The only solace he could take was the knowledge that he wasn't as bad a person as Patchman was.

And that was as cold a comfort could be.

"Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea." TS. Eliot flowed out of Oz's mouth with an easy grace. Seth mulled them in silence. "You're still young."

"I thought you're barely thirty."

Oz's lips twitched into a lopsided, sharp smile. "Back to normal, I see."

Seth slithered down, pulling the blanket up to his chin. It was a comforting act, one he indulged in every night—it reminded him of the simple comforts from his childhood. "Not really. I don't really know what constitutes as normal anymore. I would like to change it, though."

"That's the spirit," was what he got in reply. The thunder drew closer, banging on doors like panicked late-night guests. Seth's eyes returned to the windows.  
He didn't expect much from a night with Oz, really. He was just looking for something, and he had yet to relearn how to look at people in the eyes. The guilt settled in full force and months weren't enough. But he knew how to face Oz. Oz knew what he had done. It was easier to look at him in the eyes and say, in silence, _I did all that_. _I know you know_. He didn't have to make excuses.

But he would be lying if he said that this didn't soothe him somewhat. It didn't make his crimes any less, didn't change the truth, but perhaps. Perhaps he could face his own sins and repent by doing some good. Perhaps he could try to create the just world he wanted, and dedicate it in their names.

The rain continued.

"Move over," he murmured. "I'm big spoon."

"Picky," Oz grumbled, but he moved nonetheless. Lightning lit up the room once, twice, but Seth's eyes were closing, and his fingers no longer twitched for words. This was reality, now, and words on papers were ideals, unattainable perfection. He'd cope, he'd make do.

He'd learn. If the fool would persist in his folly  
he would become wise.

* * *

A/N: I have spent the past few months writing numerous ARAGO fanfictions.

Lots of it won't be posted because of reasons but

It feels so good to "publish" these properly


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